TY - JOUR
T1 - Two-temperature GRRMHD Simulations of M87
AU - Ryan, Benjamin R.
AU - Ressler, Sean M.
AU - Dolence, Joshua C.
AU - Gammie, Charles
AU - Quataert, Eliot
N1 - Funding Information:
It is a pleasure to thank J. Dexter, M. Moscibrodzka, A. Tchekhovskoy, and Fu-Guo Xie for useful discussions. Work at Los Alamos National Laboratory was done under the auspices of the National Nuclear Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy. S.M.R. is supported in part by the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship. J.D. acknowledges support from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Los Alamos National Laboratory. C.F.G’s work was also supported in part by a Romano Professorial Scholar appointment. This work was supported in part by NSF grants AST 13-33612, AST 1715054, Chandra theory grant TM7-18006X from the Smithsonian Institution, and a Simons Investigator award from the Simons Foundation. This work was made possible by computing time granted by UCB on the Savio cluster. This work benefited from the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (allocation TG-AST170024), which is supported by National Science Foundation grant number ACI-1053575. This research used resources provided by the Los Alamos National Laboratory Institutional Computing Program, which is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration under contract No. DE-AC52-06NA25396.
Funding Information:
Work at Los Alamos National Laboratory was done under the auspices of the National Nuclear Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy. S.M.R. is supported in part by the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship. J.D. acknowledges support from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Los Alamos National Laboratory. C.F.G's work was also supported in part by a Romano Professorial Scholar appointment. This work was supported in part by NSF grants AST 13-33612, AST 1715054, Chandra theory grant TM7-18006X from the Smithsonian Institution, and a Simons Investigator award from the Simons Foundation. This work was made possible by computing time granted by UCB on the Savio cluster. This work benefited from the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (allocation TG-AST170024), which is supported by National Science Foundation grant number ACI-1053575. This research used resources provided by the Los Alamos National Laboratory Institutional Computing Program, which is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration under contract No. DE-AC52-06NA25396.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/9/10
Y1 - 2018/9/10
N2 - We present axisymmetric two-temperature general relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the inner region of the accretion flow onto the supermassive black hole M87. We address uncertainties from previous modeling efforts through inclusion of models for (1) self-consistent dissipative and Coulomb electron heating (2) radiation transport (3) frequency-dependent synchrotron emission, self-absorption, and Compton scattering. We adopt a distance D = 16.7 Mpc, an observer angle θ = 20°, and consider black hole masses and spins a ∗ = (0.5, 0.9375) in a four-simulation suite. For each (M, a ∗), we identify the accretion rate that recovers the 230 GHz flux from very long baseline interferometry measurements. We report on disk thermodynamics at these accretion rates (). The disk remains geometrically thick; cooling does not lead to a thin disk component. While electron heating is dominated by Coulomb rather than dissipation for r 10GM/c 2, the accretion disk remains two-temperature. Radiative cooling of electrons is not negligible, especially for r ≲ 10GM/c 2. The Compton y parameter is of order unity. We then compare derived and observed or inferred spectra, millimeter images, and jet powers. Simulations with M/M o = 3.3 ×109 are in conflict with observations. These simulations produce millimeter images that are too small, while the low-spin simulation also overproduces X-rays. For , both simulations agree with constraints on radio/IR/X-ray fluxes and millimeter image sizes. Simulation jet power is a factor 102-103 below inferred values, a possible consequence of the modest net magnetic flux in our models.
AB - We present axisymmetric two-temperature general relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the inner region of the accretion flow onto the supermassive black hole M87. We address uncertainties from previous modeling efforts through inclusion of models for (1) self-consistent dissipative and Coulomb electron heating (2) radiation transport (3) frequency-dependent synchrotron emission, self-absorption, and Compton scattering. We adopt a distance D = 16.7 Mpc, an observer angle θ = 20°, and consider black hole masses and spins a ∗ = (0.5, 0.9375) in a four-simulation suite. For each (M, a ∗), we identify the accretion rate that recovers the 230 GHz flux from very long baseline interferometry measurements. We report on disk thermodynamics at these accretion rates (). The disk remains geometrically thick; cooling does not lead to a thin disk component. While electron heating is dominated by Coulomb rather than dissipation for r 10GM/c 2, the accretion disk remains two-temperature. Radiative cooling of electrons is not negligible, especially for r ≲ 10GM/c 2. The Compton y parameter is of order unity. We then compare derived and observed or inferred spectra, millimeter images, and jet powers. Simulations with M/M o = 3.3 ×109 are in conflict with observations. These simulations produce millimeter images that are too small, while the low-spin simulation also overproduces X-rays. For , both simulations agree with constraints on radio/IR/X-ray fluxes and millimeter image sizes. Simulation jet power is a factor 102-103 below inferred values, a possible consequence of the modest net magnetic flux in our models.
KW - accretion, accretion disks
KW - magnetohydrodynamics (MHD)
KW - plasmas
KW - radiation: dynamics
KW - radiative transfer
KW - turbulence
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U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/aad73a
DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/aad73a
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85053456534
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 864
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 2
M1 - 126
ER -